This week is very fruitful for PLM events. PTC Live 2014, Siemens PLM connection, GrabCAD media event. Twitter and other social networks can help you catch up with multiple events at the same time with minimum time. So, in 1-2 hours, you can get up to speed with news and updates. Chad Jackson’s and Allan Behrens’ tweets from GrabCAD media event turned my head back to small companies and customers that not using PDM/PLM systems these days.
“Per an @SiemensPLM research report, only 70% of #CAD user utilize #PDM.” @hardi_meybaum @GrabCAD briefing; @hardi_Maybaum @grabcad says that 70% of cad users don’t use PDM or PLM. That’s their target market.
In one of my earlier posts I wrote – Why PLM stuck to provide solution for SME? Low cost and efficiency – these are two topics on the list of PLM characteristics to be delivered to smaller companies. Easy to say, but very hard to achieve. CAD /PLM vendors are trying to get it done for the last couple of decades. I’ve been scratching my head trying to think what else can be done by PLM vendors to become more successful in SME manufacturing eco-system.
One of the trends that getting more visible these days is related to growing dominance of small organizations or groups. Large companies leaning towards small team to get more agile and efficient. Agile development methods. Two pizza box teams. Many other buzzwords…
My attention caught the following blog post – Cells, Pods, and Squads: The Future of Organizations is Small. Article speaks about what can future organization looks like. Read the article and draw your opinion. Here is my favorite passage that speaks about matrix product organization:
At Spotify, engineers and product people work within a kind of matrix organization that evolved out of a need to scale agile teams. Their basic unit or “cell” is called a “squad,” a cross-functional, self-organizing, co-located team of less than eight people that has autonomy on what to build and how. While each squad has a mission to work towards, they still have to harmonize across many levels — on product, company priorities, strategies, and other squads. The trick, Kniberg explains, is not to frame autonomy and alignment as poles on a spectrum but as dimensions. The goal is high autonomy/high alignment within this framework.
I liked the term – autonomous alignment. You may ask me how is it connected to PLM? Here is the thing… Majority of PLM systems today are designed for high level of alignment and low autonomy. PLM is focusing on how to support processes, getting people fill their role in the process. Then PLM can run the show. The combination of high autonomy and high alignment doesn’t fit existing top-down hierarchical PLM models.
What is my conclusion? Old technology, new reality. This is what happens with PLM these days. And this is what happens in many small organizations. Existing PLM experience doesn’t fit. Try to apply existing PLM products cause failure and inefficiency. New type of systems needed – flexible, agile and social. It will help people to get work done autonomously and keep the alignment on goals, data, processes, deliveries and, what is more important, company outcome. Just my thoughts…
Best, Oleg
